A bit different of a discussion today, as I want to take a short break from extolling the virtues of estate planning to talk a little bit about internet security. In the context of elder law, you may want to have a conversation with your parents or other elder family members about their internet security. Indeed--you may want to look at your OWN internet security practices after you read this blog post!

In starting up my law firm, I was frequently "out and about" working around town at various places, like public libraries, coffee shops, or office buildings. As I write this, I am sitting in the customer lounge of the Ford dealer here in Virginia Beach ​[https://www.beachford.com/] working away. The Virginia State Bar has a pretty robust set of rules protecting privacy and governing security of client information that lawyers must follow. Pretty quickly, I discovered that the antivirus program and other protections on my computer were great, but if I was going to conduct business using public wifi networks, my computer and everything on it were subject to attack and compromise by hackers.

Hackers can set up fake wifi networks that look real. How do you know that "Starrbucks wifi" is a fake wifi network? Or "F0rd Dealer Network" is real? Could you tell by the misspelling of Starbucks? Or the fact that the "oh" in Ford was really a zero? Hackers will set fake networks up all the time using spoofing to fool you. Or they can surf in on the same legit wifi you use everyday, and take your data. Like the song above says--"who is watching me?" We really need to know.

I did some research and got myself a VPN to protect my computer when I use the internet via wifi in a public place. Its pretty cheap, and you can make it much harder for bad guys to hack you. The best simple technical summary I can find of what a VPN is and how it works is at the following website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network

I dont intend to scare you by writing this blog. I only want you to analyze your behavior, identify risks, and mitigate them. And note, I became intensely interested in this topic as I noticed dozens of older folks coming into Starbucks one day and using the free wifi on their tablet to surf the net and read the news or look at Facebook. Their computers and their data is at risk. Help yourself and those you love--look into getting a VPN!

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Jeff Sodoma, MPA, Esq. is a lawyer based in Virginia Beach, Virginia

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Hello, there! Welcome to my blog. I will use this blog as a platform for my writing. I will write about topics in the legal world, certainly, as well as everything else under the sun, because I have many interests (and viewpoints). All views expressed in this blog, unless otherwise noted, are mine alone. One of my interests is music--my wife believes that I should go on "Beat Shazam" because I know so many songs--and I will be, from time to time, analyzing song lyrics and how they relate to the legal world.